After four years in prison ex-Police Inspector Danny Castro wants his rep back

Inspector Daniel Castro was a rising star in his mid-40s with friends on City Council and street cred on the corners.

The goal was to one day lead the Philadelphia Police Department. He was playing the long game.

"I can't get myself in trouble," Castro once told an FBI cooperating witness. "I want to be police commissioner."

Castro's career crashed and burned on Nov. 5, 2010, when he was hit with a federal indictment for extortion and bribery.

The charismatic leader of the department's Traffic Division appeared in court with his hands cuffed behind his back and a new reputation, as the highest-ranking Philadelphia police officer in decades to face criminal charges.

"He ain't that . . . bright if he did this," former Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said that day.

Now, the whole ordeal is behind Castro. The trial. The mixed verdict. The guilty plea. The harsh prison sentence. Castro is 53 years old, living alone in Northeast Philly, collecting a city pension.

This is when most felons pick up the pieces and start anew. Except there is something Danny Castro wants this city to know: He's innocent, he says.

"I'm here to clear my name and be vindicated," Castro said during a recent visit to the Inquirer and Daily News. "By coming forward like this, I have a lot to lose."

The Castro case has been complex and confounding from the beginning, with a hung jury, multiple appeals, a fed-up judge, and even a paperwork error that got Castro temporarily out of prison.

Castro was charged in 2010 with plotting to shake down a business partner who owed him $90,000 - his entire life savings - from a failed real estate venture. Castro was caught on tape by an FBI informant authorizing the use of "enforcers" to collect the money through threats and violence, such as leg breaking.

The jury deadlocked on most of the charges in an April 2011 trial, acquitting him on one count of attempted collection of credit through extortionate means, and convicted him on one count of lying to the FBI, which an appeals court later overturned.

That summer, Castro pleaded to conspiracy, avoiding a retrial and preserving his $4,795-a-month pension, which he said he needed to help care for his mother and then-fiancée and her children.

"I made a terrible mistake," Castro said at sentencing. "Clearly the worst mistake of my life. I live it every day."

U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III rejected pleas for leniency from community activists and three City Council members, sentencing Castro to five years in prison - more than prosecutors had sought.

In 2014, Castro briefly tasted freedom when he was released early from a Texas prison and found a job here at UPS - only to have the feds show up after a few weeks, saying his release was a mistake.

"Talk about a nightmare," he said. "It's like a double nightmare."

Today, Castro describes his time in the criminal-justice system as a "terrible and frightening experience," but he says he's not ready to move on. He is attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and face a new trial, if necessary.

"I'm returning to that very system to prove that I'm not guilty," Castro said, dressed in a charcoal gray pinstripe suit and looking significantly thinner than he was in 2010.

He is asking the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for permission to appeal his conviction on grounds he received ineffective legal counsel from his trial lawyer, Brian McMonagle.

Castro says McMonagle led him to believe that he could lose the pension he had accumulated over 25 years of police service if he went to trial a second time and was convicted of honest-services fraud. But a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowed the scope of that law, which Castro and his lawyers say may have made it more difficult for prosecutors to secure a conviction.

"It wasn't a matter of guilt or innocence," Castro said. "It was a matter of protecting a pension I didn't have to protect."

George Newman, the lawyer handling Castro's appeal to the Third Circuit court, said the guilty plea was involuntary.

"It was clear that he was feeling coerced," Newman said.

McMonagle, who is now representing Bill Cosby, declined comment.

Acting United States Attorney Louis Lappen, who prosecuted the case, said Wednesday that he wasn't buying Castro's story: "As the government argued in the district court, we do not believe the defendant's post-conviction claims have any merit," he said.

Last year, Bartle rejected Castro's initial ineffective-counsel argument, writing that Castro simply had "buyer's remorse."

Castro says McMonagle called a meeting in 2011 with about 25 of Castro's friends and relatives to try to convince him that he should plead guilty to protect his pension.

"In essence, I was doing the honorable thing," Castro said.

Iris Colon-Torres, a former linguist at the Criminal Justice Center who was at that meeting, said Castro was pressured into pleading guilty "to save his pension."

"He was one of our main voices and the eyes that were looking out for the Puerto Rican community," she said. "I really love Danny. He could be my son."

Lisette Agosto Cintrón, the principal of Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School, who also was at the meeting, said Castro "did not want to plead guilty at all. He never did."

Castro completed his sentence in October 2015 and is on supervised release. He has been struggling to find a job, despite an M.B.A. from Drexel University and a second master's degree in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School.

"It's tough as it is in today's economy to get a job," he said. He has applied for a job with the federal government, but he offered no details.

Castro was reprimanded in 2011 when he showed reporters outside the courthouse photographs of the business associate who he said stole his money - and the man's New Jersey home. Castro said the associate "deserves just as much exposure" as he did. Bartle called it a threat.

"I'm very sorry. I'm very embarrassed," Castro told the judge at the time. "I don't think I'll ever speak to the media again."

But now Castro sounds as if he has no choice. He is not prepared to live a quiet life in Northeast Philly as a disgraced ex-cop. He still uses a Gmail account with the word "inspector." He still believes in his innocence.

"When I go to my deathbed," Castro said, "I want people to remember the truth."

benderw@phillynews.com

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